My parents Renate 1898-1976 and John J. Dick 1888-1963

My parents were John J. Dick, born 1888 and Renate Beckstat, born 1898, both in Fürstenau, Molotschna Colony of Russia. I was born in Hanover Township, near Steinbach, Manitoba, shortly after my parent's arrival in Canada. The English language was very new to Dad when he went to register me and our family had no idea that I'd been registered as Susanna Duck. I discovered the spelling error when I got my birth certificate in 1943.

My parents were assigned to a Manitoba farm for the first two years, then in 1927 we moved to the Leamington, Ontario area. I was the third of six children; my siblings were Justina, Anna, Elizabeth, Lena and John who was born ten years after Lena.

My first memory is of attending the Albuna School on Concession nine of Gosfield Township in 1932. Mrs. Allen was my teacher in the one room school. One day when my neighbour Shirley Maycock, who later married a Dutot, and I were walking home from school, we were offered a ride by the man who drove the gravel road scraper pulled by two horses. We stood on the platform as we went south on the Albuna Townline and he dropped us off at the corner of Concession 8. Sometimes we took a shortcut through the bush on the East side of the Townline. There was a big chestnut tree in William Hatcher's bush where we gathered chestnuts and carried them home in our dresses. Our school Christmas concert was held in the Albuna United Church where we walked for practice.

My Dad got sick in the early 1930s. By now we had moved to a seven acre farm down the road, West of our first place and grew strawberries, raspberries and tobacco. We children attended the two-room Blytheswood school located on the corner of Concession 8 and Highway 77. Miss McCarthy was one of my teachers there. When I was 13, I skipped Grade 7 and wrote my High School entrance examinations.

Now I became gainfully employed, firstly at Ross Bruners on Concession 3. Here I lived all week and cooked, baked and cleaned. The Bruner family had a daughter who was crippled with polio. One day early in January of 1942, a radio announcement said that Pearl Harbour had been bombed and this marked the beginning of World War II. I worked seven days weekly and had every third Sunday off. Pay was $5 weekly and I stayed about one year.

Next I got work at the Consolidated Tobacco Factory in Kingsville along with my sisters. We stayed in a rooming house across the street from the Lakeview restaurant. We rented a bedroom with a corner kitchen for the season: November to March. During the summer months we worked in the tobacco fields. No weed spray was used at the time and there was no end to the hoeing.

Our family attended the United Mennonite Church on Oak Street of Leamington. I had been raised with the Low German language so the High German in Sunday School and German School presented a challenge for me. I remember Sunday School teachers Jacob Barkovsky, Henry Derksen Senior, Mary Tiessen and Mary Dyck. German School classes took place in the church basement on Saturday mornings during the winter months. Here David Krueger was one of my teachers. Later I attended Catechism classes held in the church sanctuary where I was baptized.

My parents, along with their six children, visited regularly with our Swabian and Mennonite neighbours: the John Warkentins, Hanzmans, Schiefers and others.

Nick Schmidt and I were engaged in 1943. It was wartime and Nick needed to work as an orderly in a Halifax hospital until the end of 1945. We were married in January of 1946 in the Oak Street Church by Rev. N.N. Driedger. It was a cold day and my red rose bouquet had turned black by the time I got into the church. We ate in the church basement. This was a double celebration: my parents were married 25 years. We had sliced roast beef, potato salad; family and friends brought the baked goods. There was no honeymoon. I paid $20 for my wedding gown at the Jaunty Shoppe in Leamington. At that time, married women were expected to wear a hat and gloves to church services.

Nick and I lived at Point Pelee where we grew asparagus and picked apples for one year. There were many snakes at the Point. Nick and Anne Tiessen had lived there the previous year. In December of 1946 our first child was born. After one year, we moved to Concession 7 between Highway 77 and Goldsmith. Here we sharecropped tobacco, cabbage and tomatoes for one year. Then we bought Nick's parent's farm on Concession 8 for $7,000 and our parents moved to Dunnville.

We lived on our farm for 32 years and grew soybeans, late and early tomatoes which we started in our little greenhouse. In 1979 we sold the farm and severed a lot where we built a house. Nick had Parkinson's and in 2004 he developed gout. He spent the month of November in the Leamington hospital, but was happy to come home for the month of December. In January of 2005, he returned to the hospital and died there six weeks later. I stayed in the house for two years, then purchased a condominium on Pickwick Drive.

                                  Today I have four children, 12 grandchildren and 16 great grandchildren.

AK2008

    (Back)